Good news for those of you who live in Delaware County: there’s a new range opening in Upland, Race Street Range. Delco desperately needs more places to shoot that are mostly available to the general public (as opposed to private clubs that are hard to get into if you don’t know someone). Currently, there are public ranges in Yeadon (Double Action) and Chadds Ford (Targetmaster). I’ve never been to Double Action, but Targetmaster isn’t a place I’d go anymore. One of my visits there, I saw a staff member part-way down range fixing a jammed target hanger while people on the far end were still using the range. When the staff don’t follow basic safety rules, that’s bad news. Maybe they’ve cleaned up their act since then, but that was enough for me. Upland is a good location. It’s close enough to the market without having too many soccer moms. Chadds Ford is practically soccer mom central, and I remember Targetmaster had a terrible time opening back in the late 80s/early 90s.

Having this new range succeed in Upland will be a huge boon for the shooting culture in Pennsylvania. When I lived back home, if I wanted to shoot I used to drive all the way up to Classic Pistol, closer to where I live now. There are half a million people who live in Delaware County, and now shooting will be more accessible for them. Of the suburban counties, only Bucks County and Chester County have a reasonable number of public ranges of the kind that service people just getting into the culture.

As someone who has shot at Targetmaster a lot, I’ve never had a problem with ROs there: They’ve seen me shoot enough that they know I’m competent, and that I can be trusted to police myself.

I certainly don’t deny that they can have some pretty serious customer service issues though; I’ve heard enough entirely believable firsthand accounts.

That being said, when it comes specifically to issues with the ROs, I wonder how many of the complaints are the result of genuine CS issues, and how many are bruised egos resulting from ROs correcting legitimate safety issues.

“One of my visits there, I saw a staff member part-way down range fixing a jammed target hanger while people on the far end were still using the range.”

Their range has 15 lanes, with a wall separating lanes 1-5 on the left from lanes 6-15 on the right. Do you mean that the guy downrange had people actively shooting on the same side of that dividing wall, or were the people shooting on the other side of the wall?

“Delco desperately needs more places to shoot that are mostly available to the general public (as opposed to private clubs that are hard to get into if you don’t know someone). ”

From everything I’ve seen, RSR is going to be a members-only facility.